Woke Hammer

There is no single agreed-upon definition of "woke", but it is associated with progressive ideas involving social justice, mainly regarding identity and race, such as the notion of white privilege, male privilege or reparations for descendants of formerly enslave African Americans. Ron DeSantis' legal team has recently given us a legal definition of "woke", but it might work against his goals.

The term "woke" has a long history, starting in the early 20th century when it became a term used among African Americans warning against the dangers of racial injustice in policing. "Stay woke" was a call to be aware of the systemic imbalance against African Americans. While the term has been popularized by black artists like Lead Belly, Erykah Badu and Childish Gambino with different meanings, from the 2010s onward it regained its original connotation;

Following the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, The phrase stay woke was used by activists of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses. The BET documentary Stay Woke, which covered the movement, aired in May 2016. Within the decade of the 2010s, the word woke (the colloquial, passively voiced past participle of wake) obtained the meaning 'politically and socially aware' among BLM activists.
_{source: Wikipedia}

From then on the meaning of "woke" has been broadened to encompass all kinds of social and systemic injustices like the ones I've mentioned before. And that's where Ron DeSantis' legal team has done a wonderful job. Florida Senator DeSantis has gained a reputation as the chief warrior against "wokeness"; in a speech he literally said "our state is the state where woke goes to die", under laud applause. And he has repeated that in several public appearances. The question of the meaning of "woke" came up during a trial over the reinstatement of Democratic State Attorney Andrew Warren, whom DeSantis suspended after Warren signed a pledge not to prosecute abortion seekers or providers. During the trial DeSantis' legal team was asked to define "woke", and this is what they came up with: "it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." The team added that Ron DeSantis does not believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S., and reiterated that Warren's "wokeism" led him to sign the pledge not to prosecute abortion crimes...

The definition is adequate and reflects its wide scope of all "systemic injustices". Injustices that, according to DeSantis and many conservatives, don't exist. The problem for these conservatives is that a majority of Americans are "woke" enough to know that systemic injustices do exist. For example, a 2021 Gallup poll shows that:

Sixty-four percent of Americans believe racism against Black people is widespread in the U.S., a slight, but not statistically meaningful, increase from 2016 (61%). It is the highest in the trend of five total readings since 2008, the three most recent of which are 60% or higher.
_{source: Gallup}

Now, either you believe that America is full of racist individuals, or you believe that racial injustice is woven into the fabric of institutions, politics, laws and customs that is American society. Another poll published by US.News on 16 November 2022 showed that 53% of white Americans answered "yes" to the question "do you believe there is systemic racism in America?" Among colored demographics the percentage was much higher, ranging from 67% among Hispanics to 81% among African Americans. Read the entire article for more results that should be interesting to DeSantis and his ilk.

The flip-side of this fairly accurate interpretation of "woke" is that if its entered into legislation, it can be used to mean almost anything, interpreted in a way that benefits whoever accuses someone of "wokeism". When is something "systemic"? Many right-wingers seem to believe that if there's no explicit law that targets explicitly a marginalized group, the system is clean, and no accusation of systemic injustices can be made. This is not true of course, but it will be interpreted that way by the far right justices installed by the GOP. Anti-woke legislation can, and, given a chance, will be used as a hammer to stamp down on progressive activism in all strata of society. According to the polls, a majority of Americans is woke, so I'd advice them to not move to Florida as long as DeSantis is its Senator, because Florida is where woke goes to die. His words, not mine. DeSantis' stance on wokeness, Critical Race Theory and many more regressive opinions, is part of a larger movement among the far right towards authoritarianism; watch the first video for a commentary on Trump's recent call to terminate the Constitution as well as the legal interpretation of "woke" by DeSantis' legal team.

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